Word: volstead
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Dates: during 1920-1920
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...following article William E. Johnson, better known to the public as "Pussyfoot" Johnson, explains the real underlying reasons for the provisions of the Volstead prohibition act which restricts the amount of alcohol contained in salable liquors to one-half of one percent. Mr. Johnson has always been one of the foremost advocates of prohibition, and in the past few months has come into international prominence through his campaign to make England dry and through the attack made upon him by a crowd of English students, who caused the loss of one of his eyes. Returned to this country...
...Volstead Act prohibits the manufacture sale and transportation of potable alcoholic liquors containing as much as one-half of one per cent of liquor measured by volume. The reason for this seemingly small limit is not as fully understood as it should be and the reason for the rule is because of the attitude of the brewers themselves. The early state wide prohibition laws quite generally permitted the manufacture and sale of beer containing alcohol up to two per cent. The brewers who, in fact controlled in one way or another a great part of the saloons, were determined that...
Further than this, the Volstead Act contemplates the prohibition of all intoxicating liquors instead of a part of them. There is no merit whatever in any contention that it is wrong to get drunk on whisky and brandy but that it is all right to get drunk on wine and beer. The people by an overwhelming demonstration of their power have decreed that the business of making people dry shall no longer be tolerated in a free country no matter whether they are made drunk by beer and wine or by whisky...
...Volstead Act is a law. However much we may object to its provisions, we cannot sanction its disregard by the States. Only two means of killing the present act are legitimate, either that it shall be thrown out by the Supreme Court, or that it shall be repealed by the Congress of the United States...
While locality after locality continues to express itself in positive terms as favoring beer and light wines, a number of interesting legal questions arise. Is the Volstead Act constitutional in view of what the constitution says? Is it in view of what the Eighteenth Amendment says? Are the states' laws on the subject constitutional with respect to either or both? If not, which? Does "concurrent jurisdiction" mean literally "running together"--like the blending of gin and vermouth? Or does it mean acting together, but one sovereign, like whiskey and soda? As far as we are able to see, "Nobody knows...